During my pilot training days, I felt alive and felt a sense of freedom, of being liberated. I started to have new dreams and visualise my future where I wanted to help change peoples lives, if not try and change the world. After reading about Freedom in the Air, Vivian Fiore from Rotary International’s office in Chicago found me and gave me the leadership that I was looking for in polio eradication. Using my skills, contacts and drive instilled from the music industry, I volunteered to support Rotary International’s campaign to eradicate Polio from India.
I was invited to go to India and take part in a National Immunization Day with Rotarians. This was going to be very special for me. Before leaving for India, I did as much research as possible as to what I should expect. For 20 years so many people have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to develop the immunization campaign. I would spend the time I had in India in Moradabad. This was where I took part in the eradication programme in Moradabad in Utter Pradesh, both on the static booth day and the house-to-house day. The following film captures my first experience in the world largest public health campaign.
I met with UNICEF, WHO, and the local government. It was completely overwhelming to understand the amazing work of the partner organizations. UNICEF who are experts at working with children, mobilise the foot soldiers. UNICEF also buys the vaccines, which WHO authorise. WHO, are amazing when it comes to global public health programmes. They have great strategies and an accurate surveillance system to track each polio case almost as immediately as they occur. I was privileged to have been invited to Geneva recently to sit in on WHO weekly polio meeting. I was in awe of how brilliantly they work and think. The UN, with it’s specialized agencies is a fantastic organization – not perfect of course – but fantastic. Things would be much worse without the UN, WHO, UNICEF and of course Rotary International.
